


Like The Stars Miss The Sun

by erinn_bedford



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Dick and Kory and how they should be focused on other things, Dick is a nerd, F/M, Fluff, Kory is badass, Long Distance Pining, but are both missing each other, other characters are around but not major parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 13:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20657681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinn_bedford/pseuds/erinn_bedford
Summary: Dick Grayson know’s he lives a pretty dangerous lifestyle, but he thinks these moments, these silent, stolen moments when he thinks of Kory’s smile and her laugh and the way she knows what he’s thinking sometimes even before he does are the most dangerous parts of his day.Or, Dick and Kory and three months of missing each other.





	Like The Stars Miss The Sun

Sometimes, he lets himself think about her. 

Usually, it’s late, when the kids are asleep and the sun is no where in sight, and he finally has a few moments to himself. Times when isn’t thinking about training the kids, or wondering if they finished their homework, or scouring the internet for food that is healthy and will also keep growing teenagers strong. Times when he should really be trying to fall asleep but old habits and training die hard, as he’s learned, and sometimes, he feels more awake when the sun is down and the the sky is black. Side effect of being raised by Bruce “I am the night” Wayne. 

It’s then, when he lets himself think about Kory. And by let himself, he means finally allows himself to deal with all the thoughts he’s had about her all day come to the front of his mind, because for a few moments, he can. He doesn’t have to worry about other things. So he lets himself think of her, and where she is and what’s she’s doing and how she might react to things that are happening. Like Rachel learning to control her powers, or Gar turning into new animals every few weeks, or Jason not acting like dick for 2 minutes every once in a while, or if she would be able to help Rose stop walking on eggshells around the tower.

Dick Grayson know’s he lives a pretty dangerous lifestyle, but he thinks these moments, these silent, stolen moments when he thinks of Kory’s smile and her laugh and the way she knows what he’s thinking sometimes even before he does are the most dangerous parts of his day. Because, they are almost normal. For a few moments, he can be a 28 year old guy who may or may not be pining after beautiful, terrifying woman. Until he remembers he’s actually a somewhat retired superhero who is currently training a new class of superheroes, who may or may not pining after a princess of an alien planet.

They are dangerous because his life has never been normal. Because he has never been normal. Because no matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop thinking about her.

His thoughts get more dangerous the longer he hasn’t head from her. The sometimes in the middle of the night have started creeping into other parts of the day. Like when he’s coming back from the farmer’s market and hopes, that maybe, just maybe, he’ll open the door this time, and she’ll be sitting on the couch, smirk on her face, green eyes full of mischief and stories. Or when he’s making dinner and he thinks about making extra just in case Kory pops in. Or when he’s teaching the kids a new training routine, and he pauses in the middle of an explanation, stupidly listening as if she’ll appear behind him and tell him he’s doing it wrong, step in saying “here let me show you should actually do it.”

Or when he stops a half a footstep away from opening the door to his bedroom, trying to banish all thoughts of Kory tangled in his sheets, fingertips dancing down his chest as he tells her about everything and anything. 

Dick tries to chalk it down it to the fact that he hasn’t heard from her in 3 months. That part of him is just curious about what she has been up to, if she is planning on staying on Earth, if maybe, just maybe, she’s thinking about him too.

It’s dangerous but no matter what he does, he can’t seem to get her out of his head. 

Part of him knows that whatever they had for a few brief weeks would have ended in flames and blood and disaster. Part of him knows it's a good thing it ended like it did, careful, safe, smiles on both their faces.

But the other part of him, the much less logical side of Dick Grayson, can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if he kissed her by the car that day. That part of him wants to know, wants to wonder. 

That part of him never wants to stop thinking about Kory ever again.

xXx

Sometimes, she lets herself think about him.

By sometimes she means most of the time.

By most of the time, she means too much of the time, Dick Grayson is invading her thoughts in ways she did not give him permission too.

Kory knows there is lot about herself that she does not know. A lot of her time before earth and on earth and before she ran into Dick and Rachel and Gar and everyone else is a mystery to her. One she plans to figure out a remember. But, knowing so little about herself, she likes to think she has some sort of control over her own, current thoughts. But apparently her brain has a very different idea.

She’s up with the sun in the mornings, way to early in her opinion, but it happens every day without fail, and every day without fail, the smallest, most annoying part of her brain has a wish. That this time she will open her eyes and Dick Grayson will be there, softly snoring, his face peaceful, some part of his body tangled around hers. 

It’s an impulsive thought. One she cannot shake free of. Even though she knows it's mainly her fault that it is just a thought, not an actual action. He asked her to come with him. In his own, round about way, eyes almost pleading with her as he casually said the car had enough room. But she said no. Because she needs to figure out who she is before she can do something as impulsive and reckless as allowing herself to get dangerously close to Dick Grayson. They both need to figure themselves out. 

She spends too much of her time not allowing herself to think about him. Which means alot of her time is spent thinking about not thinking about him, which sometimes makes her want to fly all the way out to California to punch him in the face.

And the thing is, she knows where he is. The last time Donna had talked to him, her told her about San Francisco and Titans tower, which led to Donna telling her about the original titans, and now, Kory knows where he and the kids are. She has a decent idea about what they are doing, and it lends itself to her imagination more than she cares.

So she distracts herself. Donna has plans and lets Kory stay in her spare bedroom. When they are not tracing down criminals or the occasional meta human, Donna helps her translate her notes from the storage locker, and they try to figure out her life before she woke in the Vienna and the guns and whole plot to kill Rachel.

And when they aren’t doing either of those things, Donna is showing her Earth. She knows what is like for things to be foreign and unfamiliar and she’s opinionated and funny and Kory trusts her. It’s a hard thing for her to do, learn to trust others, but she Donna has her back, even if she make fun of her music choices. She knows thee best food trucks and drags her to all the fun dancing clubs, and sometimes, she smiles, and Kory can see just the smallest amount of Dick’s smile in hers, and Kory wonders if that’s something that happens with all siblings, blood related or not. 

Which leads to her thinking about her own family who she can’t remember. And also, sometimes, (most of the time, too much of the time) leads to her thinking about Dick. Dick and his stupid smile, and his stupid fluffy hair, and his stupid, perfect, magical mouth. Dick and his family, before and after and now. Dick Grayson and Rachel Roth and Gar Logan and her, their tiny, broken, disaster of a family that somehow grew in the space a few weeks, a family that she misses, that she thinks about too often. A family that could be hers if she wanted. 

A family she hasn’t heard from in about 3 months. 

Donna asks her where she wants to go next and she says Florida because it’s warm, but California is also warm. Warm and has her family, and Dick, and his stupid, perfect, magical mouth. 

Part of her wants to go to California. Part of her wants her impulsive morning thoughts to be a reality.

But the other part of her, the more logical and political part of her wants to run. Run away and never look back, because she knows it can only end in disaster, one she doesn’t think she would be able to pick up the pieces from.

But, before either part of her can weigh the pros and cons, everything goes to shit.

xXx

“What do you mean Kory’s missing?” 

Donna makes a noise on the other end of the phone, one that sounds an awful lot like she is kicking something rather hard, but he waits for her to explain herself.

“I told you. Shimmer. Tacos. Roy. No tacos. No Kory. I’ve called all my contacts in Florida, and used just about every ounce of pull with anyone to see if they’ve caught a glimpse of her. But nothing. She’s just gone. I know it’s shitty timing with Dr. Light but I can’t leave Chicago. Not without knowing she’s okay.” Donna sighs, and then kicks something again, and Dick presses his head into the kitchen counter.

All of his thoughts about Kory Anders turn to a slow sort of panic. Kory is missing. Dr. Light is sending light bombs after them. Hank and Dawn are having some sort of argument he hasn’t figured out yet. Rachel is definitely hiding something from him, and he still doesn’t know how to talk to Gar, and Jason is a whole natural disaster bundled inside a 19 year boy, and Rose still won’t tell him who she’s running from, and he’s only one guy. One guy who was almost having a good few weeks. 

He should have known. Things were starting to feel normal. 

“Dick?”

“Yeah. Fuck.” He drops his head to the counter again, this time with more force. Kory’s missing. Has been for 2 days. And he didn’t know. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

He can almost see Donna’s glare the second the words are out of his mouth. “It’s been two days, Dick. You used to disappear for weeks when we were kids, so I was giving her the benefit of the doubt for a few days before I called in the calvary.”

“Your right, I’m sorry, I’m just-“

“Worried,” Donna says. She knows him better than almost anyone, and sometimes hates it. “You’re allowed be. But you’re also not the only one.”

“I know.” He sighs, resists the urge to kick something like Donna has been doing for most of the conversation. “I’ll see if I can find anything out from over here. Keep me updated,” he says. Dick squeezes his eyes shut, and tries not to think of any of the terrible scenarios that instantly are forming in his mind. “Please.” The word slips out from his mouth without his permission, broken and hopeless. 

“Of course. And Dick,” Donna says, stopping him just before he hangs up on he. “If anyone can take of themselves, it Kory.” 

“I know.” 

He drops the phone onto the counter much like his head, almost hoping it cracks. But to do that he would need to chuck it at the wall, a few times, probably, and he doesn’t have the energy for that at the moment. Kory is missing. Kory could bee in danger or dead and he’s been too worried about everything going on in the tower to even think consider Koriand’r, alien princess who can shoot fire from her hands, finding herself in danger.

He wants to fly to Chicago. He wants to track all of the steps that led to her being there one minute and gone the next. He wants to know where she is. He needs to know if she’s okay.

But he can’t. Because he has his own problems and his own dangerous situations, and he has four teenagers he needs to keep safe from a bad guy he thought was stopped already, and he still hasn’t made dinner for the night. 

Dick wants a lot of things. He doesn’t want normal, because that’s not who he his. That’s not who the people he loves and cares about are. But he wants safety, or at least some semblance of it. He wants the kids to be safe, and he wants Kory to be safe and okay, and he wants for the world to stop spinning so fast for single moment so he can breath.

He thought working things out with Bruce and letting go of the darkness inside of him would lead to something new, something better, something slightly less stressful.

But it hasn’t. At least, not in the way he wanted it to. And he doesn’t know what to do, or how to move forward, and for a second he wants almost normal again. But almost normal led them here to this mess. So he doesn’t know what he truly wants, and that only makes him want to smash his head into the counter until he has an answer, even if that answer is being unconscious.

“Dick?” Rachel’s suddenly behind him, probably able to read his mind or feel his stress through the walls. He knows he needs to tell her about Kory, and why Dawn and Hank are here, and why someone blew up their car, but he can’t seem to bring his head up from the marble yet.

“What happened to Kory?” Rachel forces herself next to him. He lifts his head and she’s staring at him with a glare that could rival Donna’s, and it give him enough motivation to push himself from the counter. 

“I don’t know yet.” 

Before he can say anything else Gar and Jason come into thee kitchen bickering about something, and the Rose comes, hovering by the door and Hank and Dawn follow the sounds of Jason and Gar’s argument until the kitchen is full and for a split second, Dick pretends its because everyone is hungry and they are here to talk about dinner.

But that’s not why they are here. 

So he tells them, about Dr. Light and about Kory and everyone looks at him for a plan.

He doesn’t know how to tell he doesn’t have one.

xXx

She lets herself be embarrassed over being taken down with a single taser for about three minutes. 

It was Tamaran taser, which lets her be slightly less embarrassed. 

And then she turns that embarrassment into rage, and embarrasses everyone who thought sending one person to drag her back home would be enough.

She remembers bits and pieces about who she is. More than she used to but still not enough to really know who herself, so she gets him talking first, until she learns enough for even more memories to slowly unlock in her brain. Gets him talking until he’s close enough for her knock him out and tie him up, more efficiently than he did with her.

She kicks himself for good measure, hoping she’s hit him hard enough to stay asleep while she searches for her phone.

Kory gives herself a moment to be proud of herself. And then another to think about how proud Dick would be for her not killing him, even when he definitely deserved it.

She finds her phone and then rolls her head, working out the cracks and tension as she thinks for a second. A moment. 

Really, at this point, she knows exactly what she wants.

She types in Donna’s number first.

“Oh , my god. Are you okay? Where are you?” Donna is talking a mile a minute and Kory is only able to confirm she is alive before Donna is off, asking questions she doesn’t give her time to answer.

“Donna. I’m okay. Stop for a moment.” Kory says, and Donna stops, taking a shaky breath that Kory can only barely hear over the phone.

She tells her where she is, and that she needs to know if there is somewhere they can keep him for now, and Donna goes into tactical mode, and she talks to her until she’s running through the door of the warehouse, wrapping Kory in a hug before she even hangs up the phone.

“I knew you didn’t go to Florida,” Donna says. “God, we were so worried.”

Kory doesn’t miss the we but she ignores it for the moment. “They are going to send more. So we should interrogate him a bit, figure out as much as we can.” She twists the ring on her finger, trying to figure out the best next steps.

Logically, she knows she should stay here in Chicago, figure out exactly what Tamaran has planned for her.

But, realistically, she’s been trying to figure out the fastest way to San Francisco since she first tied her assailant up. 

Donna kicks the man, and he slumps over in the chair. “I know a place were we can keep him.” Donna breaks out into a smile, turning back to Kory. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Dick has a nice place in San Francisco. Which works out perfectly.” She pauses pulling out her phone again, and Kory is able to glimpse a terrible picture of Dick on the screen before Donna presses the phone to her ear. “Something’s happened in California.”

xXx

Donna tells him she’s found Kory and that she’s okay, but for some reason, it doesn’t sink in until she’s there, standing in his door way, hair straight but still in her signature fur coat.

And he just, stares. 

Because, Kory is here, Kory is okay, Kory is standing in his door, the beginning of smile stretching across her lips.

He’s forgotten just how breath taking she is. 

And suddenly, he’s forgotten how to breath.

“Oh, my god.” Donna rolls her eyes and pushes past the both of them. “Nice to see you too, Dick. I’ve dropped our friend in the sub zone. Thanks for not changing the locks.” She pats his cheek as she side steps him, and then it’s just him and Kory, still standing in the doorway, because he is still processing that she’s here. This isn’t one of his day dreams.

It had been two days since Donna called him, telling him Kory was okay and that they were coming to San Francisco, ‘friend’ included. Two days of Dick trying to come to terms with the fact that Kory was coming, that she was going to be here, that everyone was going to be together again. 

Two days of Dick thinking maybe, just maybe, they could all make it out of this mess okay.

“Hi,” he says, rather eloquently. It comes out breathless. He wants to punch himself in the face.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Kory asks. She has a cut down the side of her cheek that’s halfway healed, and he wants to know who hurt her, wants to know what happened, needs to know that she is actually okay.

But instead, he steps aside, and her smile grows, and she lets her eyes travel around the room before spinning herself back to him.

“So this is where you’ve been the past couple of weeks.” 

“Yeah. I’m sure the kids will take you on a tour as soon as they possibly can.” He wants to take a step toward her, but he doesn’t know what their protocol is anymore. He’s never really known, but now it feels like there’s a three month sized wall between them, and he doesn’t know how to start breaking it down.

“Hmm.” She hums, eyes still roaming before dragging her teeth over her bottom lip. “Any chance of you being the one to show me around?”

And, fuck. Kory Anders is literally two steps away from him, real, and alive, and flirting with him, and fuck he’s missed her. Dick closes the space between them in two second, his hand coming up to cup her cheek, thumb ghosting over the cut on her skin.

“Pretty sure the kids would severely injure me if I tried.” 

Kory’s eyes flutter shut and wants to kiss her, wants to pull her into his room, wants to know everything about her last three months. But there’s seven other people in the house and about 18 different problems that need to be taken care of so he can’t.

He knows they only have a few moments before Rachel and Gar crash into the room. Only a few moments before everyone swarms and the he has to start explaining Rose and Dr. Light why they are all here. Only a few moments with Kory by themselves, a few moments to take in that she is alive, and she is okay, and she is here, before the peace is broken.

“Will you tell me what happened?” He asks, words barely a whisper.

Her eyes shoot open, and there’s a split second of fear that he is able to catch before she blinks it away. 

“Will you tell me?” 

He nods, not trusting himself to speak. Because he will. Because he finally wants to. 

He wants a lot of things. 

“Later. After the kids are done with you.” He can hear Gar’s footsteps now, so he presses a quick kiss to her forehead and then takes a step back, just before everyone else bursts into the room and then Rachel is in Kory’s arms and Gar is wrapping his arms around them both, and there is at least 10 different things that need to be figured out right now, but Dick feels something close to peace.

Everyone is here, and there is the smallest degree of safety in this moment, and together, all of them, will figure it out.

They’ll make a plan, and everything will be okay. Because this is their normal.

xXx

Kory wakes with the sun, and allows herself a single moment for an impulsive thought. It’s the same impulsive thought she’s had for weeks now. The one she keeps trying to banish but can’t.

She’s going to open her eyes, and be in Donna’s spare room, alone. And that’s okay, because she’s used to it by now, thinking about Dick Grayson when she shouldn’t.

Kory opens her eyes.

Dick’s arm around her waist tightens just slightly, and there’s the smallest worry line between his eyebrows that she would try to flatten if she knew it wouldn’t wake him up.

This isn’t a thought. This is real. Dick Grayson is wrapped around her like a cocoon and she’s in his shirt, and last night he talked to her, about everything and anything, and she told him what she had learned about herself.

This is real. She is here. And if Dick Grayson is going to be taking up too much time in her thoughts, then she wants to at least be able to tell him about at the end of day. 

Kory studies his face until his nose scrunches up. She knows he’s awake, but he hasn’t opened his eyes yet, almost like he’s afraid that he will and she will be gone.

She knows the feeling.

“Good morning,” she says, a whisper almost lost in his giant room. His eyes are still closed the the side of his lip quirks up. Kory smooths of the worry line between his eyebrows, letting her hand slip down his face until she can press the side of smile with her thumb.

“I’m going to kiss you, you know, Dick Grayson.”

His eyes pop open, and then she’s kissing him, and he rolling them over until he can cage her between the bed and his arms, and this, this is what she has not let herself think about. Because nothing compares to the real thing.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, lips brushing over her skin as he kisses his way down her throat. 

Kory tangles her hands in his hair and sighs, pulling his lips back to hers. “I’ve missed you too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thanks for reading! This is my first time writing for Titans, so I apologize is anyone is out of character. I just really can't wait for a proper reuniting scene between these two. 
> 
> Shout out to Lana Del Ray and Summertime Sadness for the title.
> 
> I'm over on tumblr [here](https://fallinfor-youreyes.tumblr.com/) if you wanna talk about Titans or just say hi.


End file.
